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Crude Oil for Natural Gas Prospects for Iran-Saudi Reconciliation

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Crude Oil for Natural Gas Prospects for Iran-Saudi Reconciliation Atlantic Council GLOBAL ENERGY CENTER ISSUE BRIEF BY JEAN-FRANCOIS SEZNEC Crude Oil for Natural Gas Prospects for Iran-Saudi Reconciliation OCTOBER 2015 The relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are often presented as an intractable struggle between powers Global Energy Center - tions: Shia in Iran and Sunni in Saudi Arabia.1 The Saudis feelthat threatenedfind legitimacy by what in their they respective consider anIslamic encroaching tradi At a time of unprecedented volatility and opportunity, the Atlantic Council Global Energy 2 The Center works to promote global access to affordable, “Shia crescent” of Iranian influence, extending from reliable, and sustainable energy. al-Sham (Syria-Lebanon) to Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. Alongside government, industry, and civil society House of Saud, in particular, views this “crescent” as an- partners, the Center devises creative responses attempt to bring an end to its stewardship of Islam’s to helpenergy-related develop energy geopolitical strategies conflicts, and policies advances that stretchingholiest sites across and replace the states it with of the Shia Gulf supervision. Cooperation Simi sustainable energy solutions, and identifies trends larly, Iran fears the threat of encircling Sunni influence, ensure long-term prosperity and security. Council (GCC), through to Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and parts of Syria. Certainly, the death of many hundreds than they appear. Saudi Arabia’s use of a sectarian soldiersof Hajjis tofrom the Iran Syrian and front other a fewcountries days later in Mecca are creat on - narrative to describe the 2011 uprising in Bahrain ingSeptember great tensions 24, 2015, between as well the as twothe dispatch Gulf giants. of Iranian Further and Iran’s self-appointed role as the champion of Shia rights underline how sectarian rhetoric has primarily thebeen opposing utilized bystate. both3 states as a tool to garner popular complicating this divide are not only differences in size, support for political ends, not one aimed at destroying cultural history, and educational levels, but also the Indeed, Arabs and Persians have states’ seemingly contradictory economic interests. influenced each other since the birth of Islam. Moreover,- since the defining battle of Karbala in 680 AD, Sunnis In light of such tension, Saudi-Iranian reconciliation and Shia more often than not have managed to peace seems impossible. However, in reality, the relations thefully geographic cohabit. Presently, dispersion this of propensity natural resources for cohabitation in the between these two powers may be less antagonistic is aided by economic factors. Primarily among these is - 1 The author would like to thank Mr. Samer Mosis, a graduate student at Gulf, with the disparity in supply and demand highlight paper.Johns Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies, for his help in fact checking and editing as well as for his suggestions on improving this ing the potential to transform economic tensions into - mutually beneficial arrangements. In this sense, where 2 The term “Shia Crescent” was coined in 2004 by King Abdullah II of Iran is envious, if not resentful, of Saudi Arabia’s role as- Jordan, largely as a response to Iran’s growing influence in Iraqi elec tions and Washington society. See Post Robin Wright and Peter. Baker, “Iraq, Jordan See 3 Fatima Ayub, “The Gulf and Sectarianism,” European Council on For Threat to Election from Iran: Leaders Warn against Forming Religious eign Relations, November 2013, http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR91_ State,” , December 8, 2004 GULF_ANALYSIS_AW.pdf. Jean-François Seznec is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Global Energy Center and an adjunct professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. IRAN AND SAUDI the region’s leader in crude markets, Iran’s substantial Gulfnatural powers gas reserves have set hold aside the sectarian key to alleviating strife in the Saudi’s past ARABIA COMPETED surplus in natural gas demand. Accordingly, just as the TO PAINT THEMSELVES periods of détente, overlapping economic and political interests today make reconciliation possible, despite AS THE PROTECTORS Briefextremist History activity of in bothPast countries. Relations OF ISLAM AND MUSLIMS WORLDWIDE, Since the end of World War II, the Persian Gulf (also WITH BOTH STATES referred to as the Arabian Gulf or sometimes, in efforts EMPLOYING SECTARIAN to avoid political controversy, simply the Gulf) has been- a theater of competition between Iraq, Iran, and Saudi RELIGIOUS RHETORIC Arabia for the region’s political and ideological leader Iranship. and The Saudi First GulfArabia War continued. effectively By put favoring an end one to Iraq’s Gulf TO BUILD POPULAR respective bid for power, but the competition between SUPPORT. aspirant over the other, the United States has repeatedly acted as a third party to this contentious relationship, its foreign policy at times encouraging cooperation and at others goading competition. protectors of Islam and Muslims worldwide, with both states employing sectarian religious rhetoric to build Starting with President Richard Nixon, the United States ofpopular the holy support. cities of With Mecca Sunnis and comprisingMedina and 90 its percent Sunni itsenacted strategic what interests some have in the dubbed region. a “twin This triangularpillars policy” rela - heritageof the Islamic gave itumma, the advantage Saudi Arabia’s in this geographic battle. Nonethe control- in the Gulf, looking to Iran and Saudi4 Arabia to maintain 7 tionship linked Saudi Arabia and Iran, not only through - less, its leadership was still threatened by Iran’s self-8 a mutual patron, but also through common solidarity in characterization as the one true Islamic government.- the face of communism and Arab nationalism. Yet, deriv Iran extended its campaign for the hearts and minds of ing from the Nixon administration’s view that Iran was- Muslims by increasingly positioning itself as an advo owedthe Gulf’s those predominant with Saudi Arabia. economic and military power, cate for marginalized Muslims, winning This threat over Sunni was only and security relations with Iran overwhelmingly5 overshad Shiite Muslims alike with its bold9 calls for Islamic unity This was best embodied in the face of Western hegemony. by the Nixon administration’s blank check to the Shah aggravated by Iran’s implication in a Bahraini coup plot, of Iran, which effectively allowed Iran to purchase any sectarian tensions in Kuwait, and the Iran-Iraq War, in weapon, short of nuclear, it deemed necessary for its - which Saudi Arabia backed Iraq. Saudi-Iranian relations- defense; an offer that was not6 extended to any other US ingreached the hajj their lowest point in 1987. That year, over four ally, let alone Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, while the pri withhundred Saudi people police. were killed when Iranian pilgrims mak - macy of the Iranian-US relations surely instilled jealousy, , the Islamic10 pilgrimage to Mecca, clashed in Saudi powerbrokers, the special place Iran and Saudi In retaliation, some ayatollahs ampli- Arabia held in American foreign policy led to tacit, albeit ianshipfied their of campaign Mecca and for Medina. Iran’s IslamicFollowing leadership, the violence turning in short-lived, Iran-Saudi cooperation. their aim to the Saudi source of legitimacy—its guard decades-long security structure were all swept away American calculations, the twin pillars doctrine, and a Mapping the Global Muslim Population 7 Pew Research Center, Forum on Religion & Public Life, in 1979 by Iran’s radical revolution, leaving in its place Revolutionary (October Iran: 2009), Challenge http://www.pewforum. and Response in the animosity between Iran and the Gulf monarchies. Iran Middleorg/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/. East - 8 R. K. Ramazani, and Saudi Arabia competed to paint themselves as the (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 19-30. 4 Andrew Rathmell, Theodore Karasik, and David Gompert, “A New Per 9 Aylin Unver Noi, “A Clash of Islamic Models,” Hudson Institute, July sian Gulf Security System,” RAND Corporation, 2005, http://www.prgs. 10, 2013, http://www.hudson.org/research/9770-a-clash-of-islamic- edu/content/dam/rand/pubs/issue_papers/2005/IP248.pdf.Diplomatic History models. New York Times 5 Stephen McGlinchey, “Richard Nixon’s Road to Tehran: The Making of 10 John Kifner, “400 Die as Iranian Marchers Battle Saudi Police in the U.S.–Iran Arms AmericanAgreement Alliance of May Policy 1972,” in the Middle East, 1945- vol. 37, Mecca; Embassies Smashed in Teheran,” , August 2, 199iss. 4,2: 2013,Iran, Israel, pp. 846-848. and Saudi Arabia 1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/world/400-die-iranian- 6 John P. Miglietta, marchers-battle-saudi-police-mecca-embassies-smashed-teheran. (2002), p. 58. html?pagewanted=1. 2 ATLANTIC COUNCIL Mecca, Ayatollah Khomeini declared that the “vile and and challenging Saudi Arabia’s role as advocate of the- ungodly Wahhabi [Saudi rulers] are like daggers which common Arab by emphasizing Iran’s commitment to heretics.”have always11 pierced the heart of the Muslims from the the Palestinian16 cause and opposition to Western im back,” and that Mecca was in the hands of “a band of perialism. Ahmadinejad’s brinkmanship demolished These claims were echoed by high-ranking the Saudi-Iranian détente and amplified fears in Saudi Iranian politicians, including Speaker of the Parliament leadership that Iranian influence was spreading across control.Ali Akbar12 Rafsanjani, and were followed by an Iranian its periphery. Iran at the same time felt increasingly ofcampaign these events. calling for the “liberation” of Mecca from Saudi threatened by an American military presence in the - Diplomatic relations were severed in the wake bia.Gulf. Iranian This military leaders buildup viewed was Saudi based Arabia on Washington’snot only as the leadercooperation of an internationalwith GCC monarchies, effort to denyprimarily Shiite Saudi govern Ara- - The end of the Iran-Iraq War and the death of Khomeini- freed Iranian foreign policy from its obligatory confron ments rights and influence across the region, but also as tational tone.
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